All cracked up!

Caption

(BCR photo/Goldie Currie)

Laurence "Nuco" Fonderoli (center) watches closely as Claire Drummer (left), almost 1, and Sophya Fonderoli,1, get a little help from their moms in the annual Fonderoli family egg-cracking contest, which was held Saturday at the Arlington Fire Station.

ARLINGTON – While most Bureau County communities were out hunting for eggs this weekend, Arlington was cracking away at their eggs.

Laurence “Nuco” Fonderoli and his family held their annual Easter egg-cracking tournament on Saturday at the Arlington Fire Station.

The competition involves tapping hard boiled eggs together to see who has the hardest boiled or most crack-resistant egg.

Two players face off as they tap the ends of their eggs together. The trick is to not get both sides cracked. The player left with only one crack or no crack on their hard-boiled egg wins the game.

The tradition started more than 70 years ago in Dalzell with Nuco and his buddies.

“I don’t think we colored the eggs then, even,” he said. “My mother would cook about a dozen of them, and I’d break ‘em all, because I got the hardest one.”

Nuco kept the tradition in his family. Daughter Lynne Bonnell remembers competing in the contest at home when she was young. In the early ‘70s, the Fonderolis shared the tradition with the village kids in the community.

“It’s fun for the kids and my dad who is 86 now,” Bonnell said. “Some adults did the egg-cracking when they were children, and now they bring their kids.”